Religious Society of Friends Timeline of Events

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Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

Timeline of Events

1656

10.14.1656

Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The marriage of church-and-state in Puritanism makes them regard the Quakers as spiritually apostate and politically subversive.

1660

6.1.1660

Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1673

3.18.1673

John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

1790

2.11.1790

Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.